Broadcasting Oct 31 - American Radio History

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R A D I O T E L E V I S I O N C A B L E S A T E L L I T E
Vol. 105 No. 18 Eci-@
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-1 TOP OF THE WEEK 1
CBS in Beirut CNN ir Grera7a
Broadcasting scrambles to cover a week of wrath
Network radio and TV departments
find themselves working on
two fronts to keep up with
action in Beirut and Grenada
The resources of major news organizations
everywhere were put to their toughest test of
the year last week with the unfolding of
back -to -back crises in different parts of the
world. Journalists were literally shaken out
of their beds early last Sunday morning in
Beirut when a suicide bomber drove a truck
with about a ton of dynamite into a Marine
compund, killing more U.S. soldiers in a
single day than any time since the Korean
War. Then, on Monday evening, all three
networks began mobilizing forces on the is-
land of Barbados in the Caribbean, as word
spread that a contingent of Marines was pre-
paring to land on Grenada, about 150 miles
away, to evacuate close to 1,000 medical
students said to be in danger there as a result
of a military coup that was executed the
week before. It was not until early Tuesday
morning, however, that the networks report-
ed an invasion by U.S. Marines was actually
taking place.
From a journalistic standpoint, the Gren-
ada invasion proved to be more intriguing
and frustrating to cover, given the U.S. gov-
ernment's decision to ban coverage on the
island. That decision was made by Secretary
of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who ex-
plained at a press conference last Wednesday
(Oct. 26) that the ban was imposed because
the safety of journalists could not be guaran-
teed. That explanation proved wholly unsa-
tisfactory to most of the journalists involved.
"It's the first time in our military history,"
said Daniel Schorr, CNN senior correspon-
dent based in Washington, who is also
known among his colleagues as something
of a journalism historian, that the press has
been banned from covering a U.S. wartime
military operation. Schorr likened the situa-
tion to that imposed by Great Britain during
the Falkland Islands crisis last year, but add-
ed that it's "even worse because at least they
brought some reporters aboard ship even
though they were kept under wraps. In this
case, nobody was taken along."
The news blackout brought vehement pro-
tests from the three broadcast networks and
CNN. Both CBS News President Edward
M. Joyce and ABC News President Roone
Arledge wrote letters of protest directly to
Secretary Weinberger on Thesday (Oct. 25),
and Ed Godfrey, president of the Radio -Tele-
vision News Directors Association, fol-
lowed with a third protest to President Rea-
gan two days later after the two networks
had not received any response from the De-
fense Department.
Joyce's letter to Weinberger said in part: "I
wish to protest in the strongest possible
terms," the policy of restricting reporters
from the island of Grenada. "I would also
like to protest the attitude expressed by your
public affairs department," continued Joyce,
as expressed in a statement to CBS corre-
spondent Bill Lynch, that the department
had "learned a lesson from the British in the
Broadcasting Oct 31 1983
27
Falklands. To use the censorship by the Brit-
ish as an example to be followed by the U.S.
in the military operation is baffling to me and
deeply disturbing because it refutes the
principals of the First Amendment..."
Joyce concluded by urging Weinberger to
take "immediate action to rectify the situa-
tion."
ABC's Arledge wrote asking for Wein-
berger's "assistance and approval in allow-
ing ABC News correspondents [and crews]
to cover the military operation" on Grenada.
"The problems we are encountering are
largely logistical," said Arledge, who added
that the network would assume the risks that
its journalists would encounter on the island.
Arledge argued that the practice of covering
wartime action "is as old as our nation and as
old as the U.S. Marines -and that the con-
stitutional framers gave special consider-
ation to the function of the press in a free
society." He concluded with the contention
that the Marines who landed on Grenada
"deserve as much coverage as the debate in
Washington over their presence there."
RTNDA's Godfrey protested "vigorously"
to Reagan on behalf of the 2,000 association
members. He described the administration's
policy toward coverage of the Grenada situa-
tion as one of "secrecy and censorship" and
said that "even if we were to accept the argu-
ments for secrecy before the invasion, I can
find no acceptable reasons for continuing
these policies more than two days after the
event." The safety of journalists, he said, "is
not an acceptable excuse. Reporters have
I